The present invention relates to furnace arch or ceiling structures and particularly to tile hangers for suspending refractory brick or tiles to the roof of furnace structures.
The refractory tile material or brick used in the construction of the roof of a furnace is generally a castable refractory tile material which is suspended by attachment to the overhead steel structure. The spaces between the refractory tile or brick is then filled in with a plastic refractory material having the consistency of a thick putty which is installed by using a steel hammer or air rammer, or is filled in with a castable refractory material which is installed by prepared formwork. Once installed, the refractory material is baked to form a monolithic furnace roof lining. In constructing a ceiling or roof for a furnace structure with such refractory material, it is important that some means and method be provided for securing the refractory tile to the overhead steel structure in the furnace roof. One previously suggested tile hanger is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,596,864 and relates to a clip having two arms which are pivotally joined together so that they may be rotated to snugly envelop a flange on the I-beam.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 2,657,651 describes a hanger construction comprised of a pair of stirrup members having hanger legs bent to form hook ends engageable over the I-beam flanges and opposite ends which are engageable with shoulders on the anchor tile.
Use of such tile hanger devices necessarily involves excessive time and labor in manually engaging the tile hanger to the overhead steel structure within the furnace roof. Also, when such hangers are assembled together, they have only limited application to specific I-beam constructions, a factor which has restricted their widespread application because of the necessity to require a plurality of sizes to accommodate variances in I-beam cross-sections. Moreover, such hanger devices are designed to rigidly attach to the suspended I-beam and do not provide flexibility to prevent damage to the refractory tile material during installation of the monolithic refractory material and upon extended periods of furnace operation, such designs have been found to be unacceptable because they are not reusable for periodic maintenance and repair work. Additionally, such rigidly attached tile hangers are not readily adaptable to contoured furnace ceilings or arches to meet specific requirements of the various furnace constructions and do not provide the necessary resiliency to resist expansion and vibration within the furnace structure. Accordingly, such devices have found only limited application as tile hangers.